As you run around Sonic Frontiers you’ll find many portals scattered throughout the map. Most of these are Cyberspace Portals where you’ll play through remixes of previous Sonic game levels. There are plenty of different portal types and one that doesn’t need any gears to unlock is the fishing portal. It can be found marked on your map with a fish icon.
Big The Cat makes his triumphant return to the franchise after many years of fan worries that SEGA retired the character. He’s happy to loan Sonic use of his fishing rod in exchange for the purple coins Sonic will find on the islands. Choose to spend a few minutes in this mini-game, and you’ll find that you may just be spending hours instead. There is a lot of fish, and even more rewards, to be found.
How To Fish
Each cast of your fishing pole costs a certain coin value. This value is determined by which island you are on, the increase is not on Sonic’s level or overall progression, so the price will stay the same if you return to a previous island.
- 1 coin per cast in Kronos Island
- 2 coins per cast in Ares Island
- 4 coins per cast in Chaos Island
- 8 coins per cast in Ouranos Island
Once you cast your rod, you wait for a fish to bite and then hit the button on the screen. There will be a red ring or two after this, and you have to time your next button press to when the white ring is touching the red ring. In the first three islands, a second ring will mean a special item, but on Ouranos Island, there will sometimes be a third ring that can denote a special item instead. This is a relatively simple system so even if you mess up the first few times you’ll likely get the hang of it sooner than later.
Fishing Tokens And Gold Cards
When you catch a fish, Big will reward you with Fish Tokens. Big will also reward you with tokens if you catch a piece of trash or a scroll. These fish and items have different values of tokens based not only on each catch but also on the island you fished them on. A catch in Kronos Island for example may net you only 2 or 3 tokens, but a catch in Ouranos Islands could be worth 64 tokens. You’ll use these tokens to buy collectibles from the shop.
Considering how many items are purchasable with the tokens, this may sound like waiting until Ouranos is your best bet, but there’s another thing to keep in mind that will help you buy tons of collectibles early on.
When you fish up a chest you will receive a Gold Card. One Gold Card is worth the exact price for any singular collectible Big is selling. Whether it’s the Egg Memos which cost 15 tokens a piece or a red seed which only costs 2, both are equal to one Gold Card. Use them wisely as this will both make buying the expensive Egg Memos much easier, but are also invaluable if you are having a hard time collecting Vault Keys or just want Lost Kocos without scouring the map.
Gold chests will reward you with three Gold Cards.
Egg Memos
Since Egg Memos are the only unique collectible to the fishing shop, they are worth explaining. These are recordings by Doctor Eggman, done while he has been stuck in Cyberspace. They reveal secret side-story content and there are 24 in total.
Egg Memos are the only collectible purchased in the shop, and Scrolls are the only gameplay addition found by fishing them up. There are two scrolls on each island, a beige scroll belonging to the Elder Koco and a green scroll belonging to the Hermit Koco. You can fish both of these at each location, but unlike every other spawn, this only happens once. Big will reward you with tokens as usual, and when you return to the overworld you can now fast travel to whichever Koco you have the scroll to.
Even if you have little interest in fishing, the level-up systems are from these Kocos, so the scrolls are a huge benefit.
Catching Every Fish In A Location
When you stand in front of a Fishing Portal you’ll notice there’s a stat about the percentage of catches you’ve managed to catch. This is counting all the fish, all the junk items, the chests, and the scrolls for each spot. All caught items and fish can be viewed in the fish-o-pedia.
If you’re interested in catching everything, the catches are all on a loop for each location. Say you catch a crayfish in a spot, you will not catch another crayfish until you’ve gone around a full cycle of the casts. Keeping this in mind, some fish are not unique to that singular spot but will only be counted towards the current spot you are fishing in for completion percentage despite being added to the fish-o-pedia. To use crayfish again, you’d still need another crayfish in a different spot for that spot’s completion. If you aren’t sure you’ve done the full loop, just leave and look at the percentage, the loop will stay where you left it so you will not have to start from the beginning. While there’s nothing special about earning every single catch in every location, players on PlayStation and Xbox will earn a trophy or achievement the first time they catch all catches for a location.
Monster Hunter Collaboration
Players who download the free Monster Hunter DLC can also grill meat at any fishing spot.
Grilling the meat will earn you tokens, yet costs no coins to do. Making it a quick way to grind for collectibles and upgrades.
